Are you concerned about cookies?

You've arrived on our Cookie Information page, so we guess you may be concerned about them or maybe you are unsure what they are. Let us explain.

Cookies are small text files saved in your internet history, these cookies are a long-standing web technology that is mostly used to enhance the way websites work for the benefit of both website owners and you as the website visitor. Over 90% of websites in the EU use cookies.

The primary function of a cookie is to remember browsing information offered up by websites as you visit them, the information is then saved by your browser on to your computer. Cookies are not viruses, nor are they executable and they cannot scan your system or search your computer for private information.

So, what about the cookies used on this site?

The EU have stated that websites must: (1) tell visitors that their site uses cookies, (2) explain what the cookies do and (3) obtain your consent to use cookies saved on to your computer. We have provided the information below so you can make an informed decision about the cookies used on this site and given you details, if you want to refuse consent, about how to delete and block cookies from this site by using the comprehensive cookie management facilities provided with popular browsers.

Google Analytics (first-party cookies)

We use Google Analytics which is a service provided by Google to help millions of website owners like us. Google collect anonymous data for its Analytics service (i.e. they do not capture your name, contact details or billing information). They do this by using cookies to track visitor interactions. These "first-party cookies" (so called because they are placed by this site) are used to store information, such as what time the current visit occurred, whether the visitor has been to the site before, and what site or search referred the visitor to the web page.

We use the analytics data Google provide to us to help us improve our website and the services we provide to our customers. However, if you are unhappy about this, Google provide a facility for you to opt of being tracked by Google Analytics here: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Social Media plug-ins (third-party cookies)

In the last few years the Internet has become increasingly social. It's no longer just about searching for information. People want to share what they are doing with their friends and love to tell them if they find something interesting or useful.

We use a few plug-ins and tools on our site that aim to make it more interesting for you as a visitor (such as a map to show where something is located) as well as help you to share anything you find useful with your friends (such as with the Facebook Like button). Most of these plug-ins use cookies. They're called third-party cookies because they come from another site.

The cookies used are from:

This Website

Google Maps

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

Do you want to stop cookies from this site being saved on your computer?

As we have said above, cookies are used on this site to make the site work better both for you and for us. We are committed to using cookies responsibly. However, if you are really anti-cookies then you can either choose to not use our site or perhaps better still (bearing in mind that most websites use them) you can configure your browser to block all cookies for all sites or just from the sites you are concerned about.

To help you do that, we have provided links to help pages showing how to manage and delete cookies for popular browsers: